First Impressions (Again)
by SereneCalamity
Summary: Bucky has had several first impressions of Steve over the years. When they first met in Brooklyn, seventy-five years after he had fallen to the ice, a few years after that when Steve had come to his apartment...And now. Stucky. Oneshot.


_Just a short fic about these two beautiful men. Oh, and Cap with a beard because_ holy shit _. Haha._

 _Disclaimer: I do not own the characters._

James 'Bucky' Barnes woke up slowly.

It was nothing like those times when he was pulled out of cryo sleep by Hydra, which was always suddenly, with a jolt, making him feel a though he was being jerked back to life. Every time he woke, he was always disorientated and then when everything came back to him in shaky, uneven images, he would feel sick to his stomach—sometimes he would even throw up, retching bile since there was no food in his body.

No, this was peaceful, and there weren't doctors with flat eyes and down-turned faces staring at him, and he couldn't hear loud beeping from machines around him.

And everything was soft colours, and there were even noises that sounded like...Birds.

"Bucky?" Came a gentle voice to Bucky's right, and he turned his head to the side. His head was on something soft, and he got distracted from looking for the source of his voice as he looked down at his surroundings and realized that he was in a bed, with a light blanket over his body, folded over just above his waist.

This was _nothing_ like Hydra.

"It's okay," continued that soothing voice that had Bucky's head moving again, and he quickly found the source of the voice.

Steve Rogers.

Beautiful Steve.

No wonder everything felt safe and warm and non-threatening.

Steve would never let him come out of the cryogenic freeze in a situation that would make him unsettled and uncomfortable, or resemble anything similar to Hydra.

"T'Challa said that you would wake up soon," Steve was smiling at him. Even though Bucky's vision was still a little blurry around the edges, and Steve was still standing some way away, and he also had a _beard_ —which was new—Bucky could hear the smile in his voice. Then, as Steve walked closer, going at a slow and steady pace, so as not to alarm him, Bucky could see the smile in his eyes, which were glowing blue and happy. "I didn't want you to wake up the cryo chamber," Steve said as he stopped a few feet away from Bucky's bed, and turned halfway so that he was looking out the long window that stretched across the entire side of the wall. He didn't fully turn his back on Bucky, but he was also giving him some privacy to adjust to waking up without Steve watching his every move. "I wanted you to wake up somewhere peaceful."

"Thank you," Bucky croaked out, his vocal chords rusty from disuse. Steve couldn't help but look back over at him, and Bucky saw his eyes glitter, as though there were tears in them. After a moment of looking at him, Steve turned away again, back toward the window. Bucky sat up slowly, taking in a deep breath.

There wasn't that nasty, medicinal smell around him or the clinking of metal instruments like Bucky had associated with waking up after being frozen for so long. And that sense of dread that used to filter through his veins as he was thrust violently back into the world after god knows how long, it wasn't there.

Bucky rolled his shoulders and then turned his head from side to side. He stretched his hands above his head and spread his fingers. He had a metal arm again, he noted, but this one had no star. It was just a plain, metallic arm, the plates shifting silently as he moved his arms and fingers. It still wasn't a great feeling, the sight of the metal arm made him a little uncomfortable, but it was nothing like the hatred that he felt toward the metal arm with that Hydra star stained on it.

He could tell that Steve wanted to watch him, from the way that Steve's eyes kept shifting over in his direction, before looking back out the window. Bucky couldn't help but smile slightly and he pushed the blanket off him, resting his bare feet on the ground. The ground was cool and he pressed down on each toe, grounding himself, before getting up, walking slowly over to where Steve was standing.

"It's incredible," he breathed out as he looked out at the forest that surrounded them.

"You remember coming here?" Steve asked after a beat.

"Yeah," Bucky nodded, his eyes still on the beautiful scenery outside. It was one of the most beautiful places that he had ever been, and he had been to some incredible places over the years. Admittedly, though, he had always been on one mission or another, and when he was the Winter Soldier, he couldn't really appreciate the finer things of life, there just wasn't room for that in his head. In his programming. "You brought me here, after..." After they left Stark.

After Steve left his shield.

Bucky bit down on his lower lip and breathed in deeply through his nose before turning around to look at Steve. He looked a little older, his eyes looked a bit weary, but he looked happier than Bucky remembered him looking. Before Bucky had gone into cryo freeze, Steve had been worried and his mind had been full. T'Challa had given them some space, as Bucky was trying to explain to Steve why he _needed_ to go back to sleep. Steve hadn't disagreed with him, and he had understood the reason why Bucky felt the need to sleep until the Wakandan scientists figured out what was going on in his head, but that didn't stop Steve from feeling alone. Of course he hadn't said it, because Steve would never put that guilt on him, but Bucky had felt it.

That weight seemed to be lifted now, his shoulders didn't seem as though he was carrying the weight of the world anymore.

And he had a beard.

Bucky liked that.

Steve had been clean shaven for as long as Bucky could remember. Back when he was a scrawny kid in Brooklyn he wasn't really _capable_ of growing a beard, just awkward, patchy clumps of skin that Bucky used to playfully tease him about. And then after the serum, after Steve's face was plastered everywhere, it was like he needed to stay clean shaven to live up to this image that everyone had of Captain America in their heads.

Now, it seemed like Steve had scratched that image.

And he suited it.

The beard looked soft, and it brought out those green flecks in his eyes that Helmut Zemo had stated as though they were a fault, not just another part of Steve's beauty.

"Your friends," Bucky began quietly. "You said that you were going to be going after them after I went under..."

"They're safe—they're good," Steve replied with a small smile. "Sam actually came by for a few weeks, before going to join Natasha in Australia."

"Natasha?" Bucky quirked an eyebrow. "Wasn't she one the _other_ side?"

"She's complicated," Steve said with a shrug. Bucky tilted his head to the side as he looked over Steve. Things had all come back, all the snippets that Bucky had of Steve over the years.

He remembered when they first met, when they were kids. Some of the other kids on the block had been teasing him, because he was skinny and physically weak, always picking fights and never able to keep up with the rest of the kids. Bucky just remembered thinking that Steve had the prettiest eyes when he had first met him, and he had just wanted to be friends with the boy who sat on the concrete steps and drew the most incredible pictures.

When he had been imprisoned and tested on by the Germans, it was Steve and his pretty eyes and his stubborn jaw that had helped him get through the long nights. And then he had seen Steve again, and he looked so completely different that Bucky had wondered what sort of shit the Germans were pumping into his veins. But it was his Steve, he was just different. That was the second first impression that Bucky had gotten.

The third time was when Bucky had been lost in his programming, a gun in his hand, Russian orders dripping from his lips. He had been so intent on carrying out his mission, on killing anyone who got in his way, that he hadn't even recognized Steve. Looking back on it now, Bucky had no idea how he had missed it. The idiot was running head first into danger, trying to protect his friends and innocent civilians. There was only one blonde haired and blue eyed beauty like that, and that was Steve. Memories had flickered through his head when Steve had uttered his name, and memories had come back when they were in the helicarriers, and it had been confusing, but then as Steve fell into the water below, Bucky knew that there was no way he could go on without making sure he was okay.

The fourth first impression that Bucky had got was when Steve had come to his apartment. The memories and the thoughts and the feelings that Bucky had for Steve were still kind of mixed up, but the most predominant one was love. And the fact that Steve had come halfway around the country to find him and was willing to turn his back on his friends, his family, his beliefs...He had a feeling that Steve loved him too.

"I love you," Bucky stated, his voice still a bit rough, and the words tasting a bit funny on his tongue, but his statement still confident. Steve looked shocked, his lips parting, but Bucky had never been more sure of anything in his life. "I love you," he repeated. Steve breathed out shakily and lifted a hand to touch Bucky's arm—his metal arm.

"I love you too," Steve murmured. Bucky didn't smile, because it didn't feel right in that moment. He was pretty sure that he hadn't smiled more than once or twice in the past eighty years or so.

But what did feel right was stepping close so that he was in Steve's space, and the other man curled his hand around Bucky's metal arm properly, treating it absolutely no differently to how he would touch Bucky's flesh arm. Bucky licked his lips, feeling a little nervous at what he was going to do, but knowing that it was the _right thing_.

He reached up and pressed his lips against Steve's.

His beard wasn't quite as soft as Bucky had thought, but the slight scratchiness against his own face and lips was even better than he expected. Steve returned the pressure straight away, and his other hand came up to rest on Bucky's shoulder. It wasn't a possessive hold, it was light and there wasn't really any grip to it. It was just as though he needed to ground himself, to remind himself that Bucky really was there.

The kiss was over quickly, but it didn't matter, because Bucky planned on them having a lot more moments like this. He leaned back, and he opened his eyes, watching as Steve pulled his lower lip into his mouth, chewing down on it, before opening his own eyes to meet Bucky's.

"You have no idea how many times I've wanted to do that," Bucky murmured. A smile spread across Steve's face, and that was when it felt right for Bucky to smile back.

 _Let me know what you think x_


End file.
